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June 2nd, 2016 14:00

VPLEX Metro and UCS Boot policy

Hi,

I am setting up UCS blades on a VPLEX Metro and cross connecting the boot from SAN ESXi hosts.  Is there a best practice when setting up boot policies for a distributed boot drive?  The VPLEX clusters are both single engine and there are dual fabrics between the DCs.  My thought was to go with the following:

C1 Hosts SAN Primary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C1 Director A EVEN FE (0 or 2)

SAN Target Secondary - C2 Director B EVEN FE (2 or 0)

C1 Hosts SAN Secondary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C1 Director A ODD FE (1 or 3)

SAN Target Secondary - C2 Director B ODD FE (3 or 1)

C2 Hosts SAN Primary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C2 Director A EVEN FE (0 or 2)

SAN Target Secondary - C1 Director B EVEN FE (2 or 0)

C2 Hosts SAN Secondary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C2 Director A ODD FE (1 or 3)

SAN Target Secondary - C1 Director B ODD FE (3 or 1)

Thanks!

108 Posts

June 2nd, 2016 16:00

Sorry, I had them mixed up, this is the new list:

C1 Hosts SAN Primary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C1 Director A EVEN FE (0 or 2)

SAN Target Secondary - C1 Director B EVEN FE (2 or 0)

C1 Hosts SAN Secondary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C2 Director A ODD FE (1 or 3)

SAN Target Secondary - C2 Director B ODD FE (3 or 1)

C2 Hosts SAN Primary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C2 Director A EVEN FE (0 or 2)

SAN Target Secondary - C2 Director B EVEN FE (2 or 0)

C2 Hosts SAN Secondary boot policy:

SAN Target Primary - C1 Director A ODD FE (1 or 3)

SAN Target Secondary - C1 Director B ODD FE (3 or 1)

Sorry!

5 Practitioner

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274.2K Posts

June 7th, 2016 09:00

https://www.emc.com/collateral/TechnicalDocument/docu5265.pdf

Above is a link to the EMC Host Configuration Guide for ESXi. Hopefully this contains the documentation you're looking for.

108 Posts

June 7th, 2016 09:00

Hi charba,

This is helpful but I can't seem to find any recommendations or best practices for a cross connected host that boots off of a distributed volume.  I can do what I have above but it exposes me to a certain extent because if there is a fabric failure (slim chance), the system would boot across the WAN.

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

June 8th, 2016 09:00

I came across some more documentation while researching this issue, not specifically on a distributed boot drive, but a lot of information that I believe applies to your environment.

In all honesty, the information you're looking for could be in one of these guide and I missed it, I'm looking into this in-between SR work, so I would recommend taking a look yourself too.

*EMC® VPLEX™ Metro Cross-Cluster Host Connectivity Implementation Planning and Best Practices

• Cross-Cluster Host Connectivity

• Host Multi-pathing with Cross-Cluster Connectivity

• OS Specific Cross-Connect Considerations

http://www.emc.com/collateral/technical-documentation/h13813-vplex-metro-cross-cluster-host-connectivity-best-practices.pdf

*Using VMware vSphere with EMC VPLEX Best Practices Planning

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h7118-using-vmware-virtualization-platforms-vplex.pdf

*Implementing VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) using EMC VPLEX (VMware KBA)

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007545

108 Posts

June 13th, 2016 03:00

Thanks charba1.  I can't find the h13813 pdf on support, the link appears to be broken.  I will review the other docs to see if I can find anything.

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